Best of · islands
The 15 Most Beautiful Islands in the World
15 places · every one real, mapped, and worth the trip
Islands concentrate wonder. Cut off from the mainland, they grow their own wildlife, keep their own weather, and ring themselves in water so clear it barely looks real. Some dazzle with lagoons; others with sea-cliffs, volcanoes, or plants that grow nowhere else on Earth. This is our editors' pick, loosely ordered by the strength of the spectacle.
Every one is a real, mapped place with an honest guide to reaching it and the best season to go — because an island in the wrong month can mean shut ferries or a wall of rain.
-
Bora Bora The lagoon icon
Society Islands, French Polynesia
The definitive South Pacific island — a green volcanic core ringed by a barrier reef and a lagoon of impossible turquoise, with overwater bungalows and coral gardens for snorkelling.
-
The Galápagos Islands Living laboratory
Pacific Ocean, ~1,000 km west of Ecuador
The volcanic archipelago that shaped Darwin's thinking, where giant tortoises, marine iguanas, and fearless seabirds live as if humans were just another animal.
-
Socotra Alien flora
Socotra Archipelago, Arabian Sea, Yemen
A Yemeni island in the Indian Ocean so long-isolated that a third of its plants — including the umbrella-shaped dragon's blood trees — grow nowhere else on Earth.
-
Lofoten Islands Arctic peaks
Nordland, Arctic Norway
Jagged granite peaks rising straight out of the Norwegian Sea above red fishing cabins and white-sand beaches — impossibly dramatic under the midnight sun or the aurora.
-
Faroe Islands Green sea-cliffs
North Atlantic (between Iceland and Norway)
Eighteen wind-scoured North Atlantic islands of grass-topped cliffs, plunging waterfalls, and turf-roofed villages, stitched together by tunnels and ferries.
-
The Maldives Atolls Atolls & reefs
Indian Ocean, southwest of Sri Lanka
Rings of coral islands scattered across the Indian Ocean, barely above the waves, wrapped in lagoons and some of the most accessible reef life anywhere.
-
Isle of Skye
Inner Hebrides, Scotland
The most dramatic of Scotland's Hebrides — the jagged Cuillin ridge, the pinnacles of the Quiraing, and sea-cliffs laced with waterfalls.
-
The Azores
Azores archipelago, Atlantic Ocean
Nine volcanic islands mid-Atlantic, all crater lakes, hydrangea hedges, and hot springs — Europe's green, uncrowded answer to Hawaii.
-
Zanzibar Archipelago
Indian Ocean, off the Tanzanian coast
A Swahili archipelago off Tanzania of turquoise shallows, spice farms, and the stone-built old town — white sand and dhow sails on the warm Indian Ocean.
-
Siargao & Sugba Lagoon
Surigao del Norte, Mindanao, Philippines
A teardrop island in the Philippines of surf breaks, mangrove forest, and island-hopping to sandbars and lagoons — laid-back and palm-fringed.
-
Batanes
Batanes, northernmost Philippines
The Philippines' northernmost islands — rolling green hills, stone houses, and Atlantic-style cliffs battered by the sea, more Ireland than the tropics.
-
Koh Rong
Gulf of Thailand, off Sihanoukville, Cambodia
A Cambodian island of powder-white beaches and one of the world's best displays of bioluminescent plankton, which lights the shallows blue after dark.
-
Aldabra Atoll
Outer Islands, Seychelles
One of the world's largest raised coral atolls, a near-untouched Seychelles wilderness home to more giant tortoises than anywhere on Earth.
-
Palaui Island
Santa Ana, Cagayan, Northern Luzon
A protected island at the tip of Luzon with an old Spanish lighthouse, empty coves, and forested headlands — wild, roadless, and reached by boat.
-
Kornati Islands
Šibenik-Knin / Zadar County, Adriatic Sea, Croatia
Nearly ninety bare, sun-bleached islands scattered across the Croatian Adriatic — a sailor's maze of white rock, blue water, and hidden coves.
Islands live and die by their season: reefs and lagoons are clearest in the dry months, while the far-northern islands come alive under the summer's endless light. Each guide notes the best window and how to actually get there — check current ferry and flight schedules before you commit.
Added